Why Columbine Killer's Mom Prayed for His Death

Sue Klebold, mother of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold, spekas up after 17 years in a new book. (Penguin Random House)

(Newser)
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When Sue Klebold learned that her son, Dylan, was involved in the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, she prayed not for his safety, but for his death—"the greatest mercy" she could imagine. That prayer was answered when Dylan, along with fellow shooter Eric Harris, committed suicide in the school's library after killing 12 students and one teacher and wounding 24 others. In A Mother's Reckoning, out Monday, Klebold apologizes to the loved ones of her son's victims, provides an account of her family's life after the shooting, and catalogs the warning signs she failed to see. "Most of all," Washington Post critic Carlos Lozada writes, "it is a mother’s love letter to her son, for whom she mourned no less deeply than did the parents of the children he killed."

Here are some of the "painful and necessary" insights and details from the book:

Dylan was "easy to raise … a child who had always made us proud," but hard on himself when he failed, "and his humiliation sometimes turned to anger."

Klebold says her son is responsible for his actions, but the "role depression and brain dysfunction can play" must be acknowledged.

She resisted blaming Eric Harris for years. "Given what I have learned about psychopathy, I now feel differently." From the book's introduction by Andrew Solomon: "Eric was a failed Hitler; Dylan was a failed Holden Caulfield."

Visiting the school library after the shooting, Klebold recognized her son's shape marked on the floor. Weeping, she knelt and "touched the carpet that held him when he fell."

Klebold was never angry with her son, she tells the Guardian, until she saw the videotapes he and Harris had made before the shooting. "He was trying to latch on to things that made him feel angry. But I just couldn’t sustain that anger."

On the morning of the massacre, Klebold says her son's shouted goodbye to her had a "flat, nasty" sound. "Was he saying to me, you were a bad mother?"

Regarding Dylan's depression: "If we had known enough to understand what those signs meant, I believe that we would have been able to prevent Columbine."

First, may God bring comfort to all the families that were affected, even though it has been many years ago, it is something that they still feel on a daily basis. And may God bring comfort to this mother and her family. They did not cause the Columbine massacre, their son and his friend did this. Whether it was the psychopathic nature, head meds or the combination of the two, it was these 2 young men that are to blame. Their families will blame themselves for the rest of their lives, always wondering what they could have done to prevent it, they don't need others blaming them too.

jansav

Feb 15, 2016 1:18 PM CST

I personally don't GARA how this woman feels. She raised a monster and ignored the fact. She prayed for his death so she wouldn't have to deal with him any more. I think the real story is how many times did she pray for his death before this happened?